Warre Magne
Pretense for the lore of Europe between 1910 and 1924 (Le Warre Grand) In the aftermath of the Great War (1912-1920), the German alliance that had brought pain and suffering during the Great German War a century earlier once again wreaked havoc against civil society in Europe. Millions were killed as amateur Victorian tacticians attempted, rather poorly, to use the new horrifying weapons of war against one another’s armies. In 1911, the German revolutionary organization Die Jungdeutsches Freikorps rose up in major cities in the Elbian Confederation and the Kingdom of Poland demanding a German kingdom separate from that of the southern Germans be established with Freiherr Wilhelm II of Hohenzollern-Potsdam as its king. The movement came as a response to social dominance of the Czech-Bohemians as well as increasingly progressive policies in the Republic. The Freikorps was a conservative ethnocentric nationalist organization, and thus saw no merit in the progressive politics pushed predominantly by the Czech bureaucrats and administrators. The Freikorps stormed the Elbian parliament in Prague in April and held it hostage for 3 days until it unanimously decided to release its German holdings from Bohemian control, with King Wilhelm II as its head of state and temporary head of government. Anton August von Mackensen was chosen as the Head of Government of the new German kingdom, and shortly after a petition of annexation came from the King of Danubia. The Czech bureaucracy and government were outraged and immediately after the act was passed, the Czech government gave Wilhelm 2 months to abdicate and return his country to Elbian hands. Burgundy, in order to weaken the Czechs and maintain appeasement of Rhinelanders, supported the new German Empire. The Polish government went into exile in Moscow as it became clearer each day that the Polish monarchy would come to an end. The Tsar maintained his obligation to keep the balance of European power, and so with the Concordat Tripartite of the Dual Monarchy of England and France and Italian Republic, the Tsardom marched into unoccupied Poland to protect it from further German expansion. Parliamentary gridlock prevented a further Czech response, as the current governing coalition was not willing to spend on the military in the face of relative peace. The first act of the war was a total German mobilization, as the shabilly set up German parliament, dominated by reactionary and national liberal members of the Deutsche Volkspartei led by Hans Delbrück, the new chancellor, enabled defense industrialists and conscripted men. The DVP quickly came to support aggressive conscription laws, and since most of the Elbian and Danubian armies now fought in the German Imperial Armed Forces, German forces outnumbered Czech forces 2 - 1 on the Bohemian front. However, Germany was not a powerhouse in the beginning of the war. Much of its fighting force was comprised of poorly equipped militias. German industrialists like the von Siemens and Krupp families attempted to kickstart a German industrial backbone at the beginning of the war, but the attempt was ultimately fruitless, so the German army relied mostly on foreign imports from Burgundy. The professional concordat armies like that of the Dual Monarchy and Russia were well organized, however the Russian army suffered from many of the same problems as the German army. The Dual Monarchy’s bilingual command structure made it difficult to command forces, coupled with outdated tactics and frequent mutinies from English and Irishmen who though they were fighting an Anglois war, and the Dual Monarchy operated like a naive child. By 1913, the German army broke the Bohemian line, but had lost ground in Prussia to the advancing Russians.(edited) In 1915, what was now being called le Warre Magne (The Great War) by press and politicians in England-France and Der sterbende Krieg (the Dying War) among German soldiers, had thawed slightly into as a multitude of futile assaults and offensives took place on each of the European fronts of the war. In comparison to prior European wars, and especially the Great German War to which the Great War is an unofficial sequel, the small land grabs seen on any commander’s map or in the mud of the No Man’s Land look trivial at best, but each meter of ground could make a profound difference. Marshal Pilsudski of the Commonwealth Army Corps would, however, make the most ambitious charge yet, leading a mixed force of Russian and Polish regulars, as well as Cossacks and volunteers from the Arcadian Union. Pilsudski had, according to many who met him, his own cult of personality among his men. He pulled the force together north of the Memel River and ordered them to cross it right into the major German defensive point known as the Litzmannstellung,which bordered the Memel a few miles back. There would be no retreat back across the river, he said. The line was rumored to have been impenetrable by a force of Pilsudski’s size, however, the guns remained silent, and it had been discovered that the position was totally abandoned by the German militia manning it. They likely deserted to another army or ran in separate ways, but this represented a large theme in the German war machine. Whether it be their gloomy nomenclature for the war itself, their tendency towards pessimism, a general lack of equipment, or the high volume of mutinies, one thing became clear - Germany’s defeat was likely on the horizon. Pilsudski continued into Ostpreußen and by September 1915, his army was entrenched at Allenstein, awaiting the Royal Lithuanian Guard to reinforce them. The German war effort in Bohemia, however, was doing very well. The Kingdom of Hungary offered a valuable partnership as it was protected from Russian advances by the Carpathian foothills in Ruthenia. German Stoßtruppen, or bands of guerilla partisans, antagonized the retreating Czech legions as they continued to leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the outskirts of Prague and the inner plains of Bohemia. The Burgundian and Anglo-French armies continued to drive into each other at little avail as the western stalemate became abundantly clear. German soldiers would find Prague defended by every man, woman, and child in the city as well as the Czech legion in deep and extensive trenches surrounding the city by February 1916. The cold drove All fronts into even more of a grinding stalemate as men and boys from every country became pessimistic and depleted of morale, as more and more were killed in fruitless skirmishes. In the vast European colonies, the Dual Monarchy and Burgundy battled for supremacy of a different kind. Both empires wanted to rule the seas and be the main “civilizational force” on Earth. Fighting in the rainforests of Africa and the East Indies was sparse yet intense. The dense urban centers of India were consistently shelled from both land and sea by either side. But even more prominent were the large shows of seapower and confrontations between the two nations in international and territorial waters. Many areas on the planet were par for the course in this regard, and it was one of the largest collective theaters of the war. The Anglo-French army, even with its shortcomings, was far more adaptable and superior to the Burgundian forces, which were trilingual and even more prone to mutiny due to the large German minority which made up as much as 90% of troops from the Rhineland. In addition, Burgundy faced an abdication crisis as Joseph III attempted to dissolve the Burgundian Estates-General and was met with cries for democracy in Anvers and cries for Socialism in the Netherlands and the Rhineland. This caused the Burgundian war effort to completely collapse by July 1916 as Marshal Philippe Pétain of the 3rd French Army moved to capture Pas-de-Calais. Being from Calais himself, not only did some of the locals defect to his army, but the resistance was completely unable to defend Burgundy’s metropolitan areas as Anvers was engulfed in revolution. England-France would continue to push the line forward and open a larger front with the German Empire. The 5th Norman Army under David Haig captured Freiburg-im-Breisgau in the German Empire after crossing the Rhine. The bloody ensuing battle was the worst and most devastating in the entire war, as over 300,000 Anglois and 458,000 Germans were killed over a period of just four months. Combat was very sporadic and urban, and poison gas, machine guns, and modern artillery was heavily used. In December 1916, Joseph III Valois-Macon of Burgundy abdicated, in favor of his nine year-old brother, Jean. Battles in Germany continued to yield massive casualties, as the hilly plains of Rhine-Swabia became a killing field. German Oberste Heerleiter Anton von Mackensen said in an address in January 1917 “This war to end all wars truly gave the Black Forest its name. The stench of defeat and decay permeates every breath, accompanied by the charred scent of gunpowder, the steely putridity of blood, and the sour burn of poison gas. Swabia has become hell on Earth, and the only devil is war itself.” In the Siege of Pforzheim, the true civil state of the German Empire was shown to be in tatters. Starvation and shortages as well as news of a speedy Russian advance with its forefront at Posen, Germany appeared to be rotted at the foundations. Even more men died on both sides as gas was dropped in canisters from planes on the Anglois soldiers surrounding the city. Even after about 90,000 casualties on either side and a month and a half of fighting, the city capitulated. On the eve of Spring 1917, Germany produced an official surrender, as did Burgundy. The war was over, however, some of Germany’s allies, like Hungary, continued to fight. In the following years, the Treaty of Westminstre was drafted and signed by the belligerents of the war, without inviting a German delegation, as Germany was not seen as a legitimate nation by the Concordat.The Burgundian Republic which was still embroiled in unrest was forced to cede many of its colonial holdings to Italy and the Dual Monarchy, lest they fall to native uprisings. In addition, it would pay reparations to the Concordat for damages caused in the French hinterlands. Germany was split back into the Danubian and Elbian states, with the addition of a third Westphalian Kingdom to represent Frisians and Rhinelanders while acting as a roadblock for future unifications. House Saxe-Coburg was placed on the Westphalian throne, and the Westphalian state was required to be economically dependent on the Concordat nations. In addition, Russia was given permission to dissolve the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ending three and a half centuries of dualistic rule in Poland and Lithuania. The Commonwealth was forcefully reorganized into the Kingdom of Poland and Kingdom of Lithuania, with a Habsburg placed on the Polish throne to placate Germans living in Poland and create a guarantee that Poland would be loyal to Russian demands. Lithuania was placed in interregnum until a secure bet for the crown could be made with the guarantee of a line of succession. Hungary was forced to give independence to Transylvania and give autonomy to Slovaks and Croats living on its fringes, as well as to return the Crown of Saint Stefan to Prague, which reversed the theft of the crown by Hungary in 1858. Bohemia would be given suzerainty over the Elbian Confederation, as it had before 1911. The Hohenzollerns were allowed the opportunity to exile themselves, as was August von Mackensen. The Hohenzollerns left for the Principality of Geneva; except baby Adalbert, who was given as a concession to the Poles to be made a fief of the Polish crown. The major opposition party to the DVP; the Elbian National Party, was pardoned in its entirety and its members allowed to stay in their respective German home states. Even some members of the DVP were pardoned. Hans Delbrück and many of his reactionary peers were imprisoned or executed for high treason in a tribunal in 1924. Germans were bitter. The Concordat was dissolved just 6 years after the treaty was signed. This event would set the stage for the next century.